The founder and former CEO of a cyber-charter school that educated thousands of Pennsylvania students has pleaded guilty to tax fraud.

In pleading guilty before a federal judge in Pittsburgh on Wednesday, 61-year-old Nicholas Trombetta acknowledges siphoning more than $8 million from the school through a network of for-profit and non-profit companies he controlled.

Prosecutors say Trombetta ran the money through the companies to shield himself from income tax liabilities and used the proceeds to buy a Florida condominium, houses for his girlfriend and mother and nearly $1 million in personal expenses.